2016年10月10日 星期一

It was necessary

That evening the Bradfords in council decided that the three Indians should bring up Uncle Will's cache on the morrow, they, in the mean time, making a flying visit to Shorty Creek for the purpose of staking claims. To be sure, the Kah Sha River and all its tributary creeks, Shorty included, would be buried deep under snow and ice, and claims would have to be chosen at random, but even this was better than ignoring a district where gold was known to be. Later, when they had visited their principal goal, some thirty miles distant, they could return, hunt for Lucky's big nugget, and see what kind of claims they had drawn from the Shorty Creek grab-bag.


A day's delay was occasioned by a snow-storm, but the second morning opened bright, and the Indians early departed on their errand. The Bradfords started soon afterward, crossing a bay of the lake and making for the western shore at a point near the southern base of the mountains. A valley, mostly wooded and several miles in width, extended straight back in that direction; and after following it about six miles, Uncle Will, who had previously questioned Lucky as to the route, turned to the right toward a deep gap which now came into view. This was the gorge of the Kah Sha River,—a stream named after the old chief of the Stiks. They had made fairly rapid progress, having brought but one sled with food for two days, tents, blankets, cooking outfit, two axes, and a gold-pan.


, however, to wear snow-shoes the entire distance. This in itself was fatiguing, and rests were frequent. Near the mouth of the gorge they came out of the woods into a wide, clear space, which, later in the season, when the snow was gone, they found to be due to an[128] immense deposit of stones and gravel thrown out by the stream through many generations. This open tract led them directly to the gorge, and presently they passed in between high bluffs of sand and gravel, which soon gave way in places to abrupt cliffs of dark, slaty rock several hundred feet in height. The river could be heard dashing impatiently over its stony bed under huge banks of snow, which had drifted in upon it to so great a depth that the water could seldom be seen.


It was a wild and wonderful canyon such as the boys had never dreamed of, and they felt the spirit of adventure rise within them as they realized that this was a land of gold. Who could tell what treasures lay at last beneath their feet? They could hardly refrain from scrutinizing every rock for the gleam of yellow metal. They gazed long and earnestly at the bare patches of sand on the slopes, till at length they were obliged to confess that it looked quite like the barren sand of New England.

2016年10月5日 星期三

dealt roughly with my mother


“I can not find him!” she cried; “and he will be so hungry, and think that his little girl dared not come to find him! Besides, all the oaten cakes that were baked but this morning will be quite spoiled!”I tried my best to comfort her, but she would not let me so much as touch her. And, being an ignorant landward lad, I could not find the fitting words wherewithal to speak to a maiden gently bred like the little Mary Gordon hong kong offshore company registration.

At last, however, she dried her tears. “Let us leave the cakes here, and take the basket and go our way back again. For the lady my mother will be weary with waiting for me so long by the waterside.”So we two went down the hill again very sadly, and as we passed by she cast her eyes curiously over at the poor lad who lay so still on his face in the soft lair of the peat moss.“That is a strange sheep,” she said; “it looks more like a man lying asleep Cruises from Hong Kong.”

So, passing by, we went down both of us together, and as we pushed a way through the bracken towards our own house of Ardarroch, I saw my sister Anna come up the burn-side among the light flickering shadows of the birch and alder bushes. And when we came nearer to her I saw that she, too, had been weeping. Now this also went to my heart with a heavy sense of the beginning of unknown troubles. Ever since, from my sweet sleep of security on the hillside I had been suddenly flung into the midst of a troublous sea, there seemed no end to the griefs, like waves that press behind each other rank behind rank to the horizon UTAS.

“Has my father been taken?” I cried anxiously to Anna, as she came near. For that was our chief household fear at that time.“Nay,” she answered, standing still to look in astonishment at my little companion; “but there are soldiers in the house, and they have turned everything this way and that to seek for him, and have also.”